Occupy Albany tent case fades into history

Last one out of Academy Park, turn out the lights. The legal battle over Occupy Albany’s once-controversial encampment in the city-owned green space has come to an anti-climactic end.

A state Supreme Court judge has dismissed the city’s bid for an injunction to permanently keep the protesters from camping in the park, not in a grand defense of the First Amendment, as the protesters had once hoped, but because their movement’s desire to occupy the park has largely fizzled.

Not surprisingly, the ruling left both sides claiming victory.

The protesters have not pitched their tents in the park across from City Hall since their contentious Dec. 22, 2011, ouster by police and public works crews after a boisterous two-month stay.

As such, Justice Joseph Teresi dismissed the city’s petition earlier this month as irrelevant, in the process citing one of the group’s own lawyers’ claim that “Occupy Albany has no intention to re-‘Occupy’ Academy Park.”